Computer locked up.

When I boot up my office computer, right after the Windows XP logo, I get a blue screen that reads "lsass.exe - System Error" on top of the window. In the window I have a big red X and it reads "Indicates the ACL structure is not valid."...and then there's an OK button. I hit enter, (because the mouse hasn't been loaded yet, I guess) and it just reboots, coming back to the same thing.

I removed the hard drive and put it in an external case and hooked it to this laptop I'm on now. I ran several trojan hunters and the such on it to no avail. All the files are accesible this way, so I can get to my data, but I can't boot from it.

Anyone seen this?

 

you could probably run a windows repair on it (from your windows boot disk) and fix it. might even be able to copy some select files (like the one it's complaining about) from a good windows directory and skip the whole windows boot disk part, but i'm no expert on this stuff.

 

hell repair is hit and miss. He MIGHT be able to use it, but at that point even with a repair windows is unstable. If you can repair it do that to access your files. Back them up and then reload. I've reached the point I'm no longer a fan of repair.

 

Repair does fine if you realize that you must then reapply any Microsoft updates afterwards. But yeah, if I didn't have any apps I couldn't live without, or could install again later, I'd nuke it.

 

Repair has never worked for me. Start clean.

 

I always reinstall all updates. I honestly probably am one of those people that jumps the gun too soon with MS updates, but Repair never seems to run quite right, and as builder said that's assuming it actually works. I normally end up having to deal with fixing that PC again sooner than later after running repair.

 

For me it just seemed to compound the problems. All my data is on a second drive. All my programs I keep on disc or the other drive. It's nothing to do a reformat.

 

I also use repair when I don't want to rebuild a workstation image from scratch, especially if it's the next generation of the same model.

 

i wish this was the default method with operating systems. i'm a big fan of the seperation of apps and data. i don't like where ms puts user information and osx ain't much better. they should ask you when you set up your user account where you want it to go (and let you have a default for those who don't care).

as it stands, i just skip all the "my xxxx" folders and put shit elsewhere by hand, but it'd be nice to be able to use the short-cuts in the file selectors.

the data/app divide makes defragging a lot more effective and backups (if you actually run them) a snap cuz you're not wasting time backing up huge apps over and over again.

 

Autocad is the only app that I know of that gives you a choice of the default folder. You can also add shortcuts in the left pane for any folder or location. I think they knew that you aren't going to save drawings in "My Documents", usually a server is the better choice.